CHAPTER IV.

THE STUDENTS OF 1665

Night came on, dark, cold, tempestuous. The fleeting beauty of the spring evening had long departed; the moon became totally invisible through the thick clouds that had been soaring onwards in gloomy masses from the south; and the outlines of the houses were no longer to be traced against the sky. All was merged in one deep impenetrable obscurity. There were symptoms of a turbulent night. The wind whistled keenly over the river and the dreary flats adjoining; and big drops of rain fell audibly upon the paved court and drawbridge of the Bastille.

The heavy gates slowly folded upon each other with a dreary wailing sound, which spoke the hopeless desolation of all that they enclosed. And when the strained and creaking chains of the drawbridge had once more lowered the platform, Sainte-Croix entered the vehicle by which he had arrived, and, giving some directions to the guard, left the precincts of the prison.

As the carriage lumbered down the Rue St. Antoine, a smile of triumph gleamed across the features of its occupant, mingled with the expression of satire and mistrust which characterised every important reflection that he gave way to. A dangerous enemy had been, as he conceived, rendered powerless. There was but one person in the world of whom he stood in awe; and that one was now, on the dark authority of a _lettre de cachet_, in the inmost dungeon of the Bastille. The career of adventures that he had planned to arrive at the pinnacle of his ambitious hopes--and Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was an adventurer in every sense of the word--now seemed laid open before him without a cloud or hindrance. The tempestuous night threw no gloomy forebodings upon his soul. The tumult of his passions responded wildly to that of the elements, or appeared to find an echo in the gusts of the angry wind, as it swept, loud and howling, along the thoroughfares.

The carriage, by his orders, passed the Pont Marie, and, crossing the Ile St. Louise, stopped before a house, still existing, in the Rue des Bernardins, where his lodging was situated. The street leads off from the quay on the left bank of the Seine, opposite the back of Notre Dame; but, at the date of our story, was nearly on the outskirts of the city. Here he discharged the equipage with the guard; and, entering the house for a few minutes, returned enveloped in a large military cloak, and carrying a lighted cresset on the end of a halberd.

He pressed hurriedly forward towards the southern extremity of the city, passing beside the abbey of Sainte Geneviève, where the Pantheon now stands. Beyond this, on the line of streets which at present bear the name of the ‘Rues des Fosses,’ the ancient walls of Paris had, until within a year or two of this period, existed; but the improvements of Louis XIV., commenced at the opposite extremity of the city, had razed the fortifications to the ground. Those to the north, levelled and planted with trees, now form the Boulevards; the southern line had, as yet, merely been thrown into ruins; and the only egress from the town was still confined to the point where the gates had stood, kept tolerably clear for the convenience of travellers, and more especially those dwelling in the increasing faubourgs. Even these ways were scarcely practicable. The water, for want of drains, collected into perfect lakes, and the deep ruts were left unfilled, so that the thoroughfare, hazardous by day, became doubly so at night; in fact, it was a matter of some enterprise to leave or enter the city at its southern outlet.

The rain continued to fall; and the cresset that Gaudin carried, flickering in the night winds, oftentimes caused him to start and put himself on his guard, at the fitful shadows it threw on the dismantled walls and towers that bordered the way. At last a violent gust completely extinguished it, and he would have been left in a most unpleasant predicament, being totally unable to proceed or retrace his steps in the perfect obscurity, had not a party of the marching watch opportunely arrived. Not caring to be recognised, Sainte-Croix slouched his hat over his face, and giving the countersign to the _chevalier du guet_, requested a light for his cresset. The officer asked him a few questions as to what he had seen; and stated that they were taking their rounds in consequence of the increasing brigandages committed by the scholars dwelling in the Quartier Latin, as well as the inhabitants of the Faubourgs St. Jacques and St. Marcel, between whom an ancient rivalry in vagabondising and robbery had long existed. And, indeed, as we shall see, many high in position in Paris were at this period accustomed to ‘take the road’--some from a reckless spirit of adventure; others with the desire of making up their income squandered at the gaming-table, or in the lavish festivals which the taste of the age called forth.

He passed the counterscarp, and had reached the long straggling street of the faubourg, when two men rushed from between the pillars which supported the rude houses, and ordered him to stop. Gaudin was immediately on his defence. He hastily threw off his cloak, and drew his sword, parrying the thrust that one of the assailants aimed at him, but still grasping his cresset in his left hand, which the other strove to seize. They were both masked; and pressed him somewhat hardly, as the foremost, in a voice he thought he recognised, demanded his purse and mantle.

‘_Aux voleurs!_’ shouted Sainte-Croix, not knowing how many of the party might be in ambush. There was no reply, except the echo to his own voice. But, as he spoke, his chief assailant told the other, who had wrested the light away, to desist; and drawing back, pulled off his mask and revealed the features of the Marquis of Brinvilliers--the companion of Sainte-Croix that afternoon on the Carrefour du Châtelet.

‘Gaudin’s voice, a livre to a sou!’ exclaimed the Marquis.

‘Antoine!’ cried his friend as they recognised each other. ‘It is lucky I cried out, although no help came. It takes a sharper eye and a quicker arm than mine to parry two blades at once.’

The two officers looked at each other for a minute, and then broke into a burst of laughter; whilst the third party took off his hat and humbly sued for forgiveness.

‘And Lachaussée, too!’ continued Sainte-Croix, as he perceived it was one of his dependants. ‘The chance is singular enough. I was even now on my way to the Gobelins to find you, rascal.’

‘Then we are not on the same errand?’ asked the Marquis.

‘If you are out as a _coupe-bourse_, certainly not. What devil prompted you to this venture? A woman?’ asked Sainte-Croix.

‘No devil half so bad,’ replied Brinvilliers; ‘but the fat Abbe de Cluny. He goes frequently to the Gobelins after dark; it is not to order tapestry only for his _hôtel_. Since the holy sisterhood of Port-Royal have moved to the Rue de la Bourbe, he seeks bright eyes elsewhere.’

‘I see your game,’ answered Gaudin; ‘you are deeper in debt than in love. But it is no use waiting longer. This is not the night for a man to rest by choice in the streets; and my cry appears at last to have had an effect upon the drowsy faubourgs.’

As he spoke, he directed the attention of Brinvilliers to one of the upper windows of a house whence a sleepy bourgeois had at last protruded his head, enveloped in an enormous convolution of hosiery. He projected a lighted candle before him, as he challenged the persons below; but, ere the question reached them, it was extinguished by the rain, and all was again dark and silent.

Sainte-Croix directed Lachaussée to pile together the embers in the cresset, which the brief struggle had somewhat disarranged; and then, as the night-wind blew them once more into a flame, he took the arm of the Marquis, and, preceded by the overlooker of the Gobelins, passed down the Rue Mouffetard.

They stopped at an old and blackened house, supported like the others upon rough pillars of masonry, which afforded a rude covered walk under the projecting stories; and signalised from the rest by a lantern projecting over the doorway. Such fixed lights were then very rare in Paris; and this was why the present was raised to the dignity of an especial sign: and the words ‘_A la Lanterne_’ rudely painted on its transparent side betokened a house of public entertainment. Within the range of its light the motto ‘_Urbis securitas et nitor_’ was scrawled along the front of the casement.

‘I shall give up my plan for to-night,’ said Brinvilliers as they reached the door. ‘The weather has possibly kept the Abbe in the neighbourhood of the Gobelins. You can shelter here: there are some _mauvais garçons_ still at table, I will be bound, that even Bras-d’Acier himself would shrink from grappling with.’

Thus speaking, he knocked sharply at the door with the handle of his sword, which he had kept unsheathed since his rencontre with Sainte-Croix. A murmur of voices, which had been audible upon their arriving, was instantly hushed, and, after a pause of a few seconds, a challenge was given from within. Brinvilliers answered it: the door was opened, and Sainte-Croix entered the cabaret, followed by Lachaussée.

‘You are coming too, Antoine?’ asked Gaudin of his companion, as the latter remained on the sill.

‘Not this evening,’ replied the Marquis. ‘You wished to see Lachaussée, and this is the nearest spot where you could find shelter without scrambling on through the holes and quagmires to the Gobelins.’

‘But I know nobody here.’

‘Possibly they may know you, and my introduction is sufficient. I have other affairs which must be seen to this evening, since my first plan has failed. You will be with us to-morrow?’

‘Without fail,’ replied Gaudin.

Brinvilliers commended his companion to the care of the host, and took his leave; whilst Sainte-Croix and Lachaussée were conducted into an inner apartment in the rear of the house.

It was a low room, with the ceiling supported by heavy blackened beams. The plaster of the walls was, in places, broken down; in others covered with rude charcoal drawings and mottoes. A long table was placed in the centre of the apartment; and over this was suspended a lamp which threw a lurid glare upon the party around it.

This was composed of a dozen young men whom Sainte-Croix directly recognised to be scholars of the different colleges. They were dressed in every style of fashion according to their tastes--one would not have seen appearances more varied in the Paris students of the present day. Some still kept to the fashions of the preceding reigns--the closely-clipped hair, pointed beard and ring of moustache surrounding the mouth. Others had a semi-clerical habit, and others again assimilated to the dress of the epoch; albeit the majority wore their own hair. But in one thing they appeared all to agree. Large wine-cups were placed before each, and flagons passed quickly from one to the other round the table.

They stared at Sainte-Croix as he entered with his attendant, and were silent. One of them, however, recognised him, and telling the others that he was a friend, made a place for him at his side, whilst Lachaussée took his seat at the chimney corner on a rude settle.

‘Your name, my worthy seigneur?’ exclaimed one of the party at the head of the table; ‘we have no strangers here. Philippe Glazer, tell your friend to answer.’

‘My name is Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. I am a captain in his Majesty’s Normandy regiment. Yours is----?’

The collected manner in which the new-comer answered the question evidently made an impression on the chairman. He was a good-looking young man, with long dark hair and black eyes, clad in a torn mantle evidently put on for the nonce, with an old cap adorned with shells upon his head, and holding a knotty staff, fashioned like a crutch, for a sceptre. He made a slight obeisance, and replied--

‘Well--you are frank with me; I will be the same. I have two names, and answer to both equally. In this society of Gens de la Courte Épée,[1] I am called “Le Grand Coësre;” at the Hôtel Dieu they know me better as Camille Theria, of Liége, in the United Netherlands.’

At a sign from the speaker, one of the party took a bowl from before him and pushed it along the table towards Sainte-Croix. There were a few pieces of small money in it, and Gaudin directly perceiving their drift threw in some more. A sound of acclamation passed round the table, and he immediately perceived that he had risen to the highest pitch in their estimation.

‘He is one of us!’ cried Theria. ‘_Allons!_ Glazer--the song--the song.’

The student addressed directly commenced; the others singing the chorus, and beating time with their cups.

Glazer’s Song.

I. Ruby bubbling from the flask, Send the grape’s bright blood around; Throw off steady life’s cold mask, Every earthly care confound. Here no rules are known, _Buvons!_ Here no schools we own, _Trinquons!_ Let wild glee and revelry Sober thought dethrone. _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_

II. Would you Beauty’s kindness prove? Drink! faint heart ne’er gain’d a prize. Hath a mistress duped your love? Drink! and fairer forms will rise. Clasp’d may be the zone, _Buvons!_ Even to the throne. _Trinquons!_ But full well the students know Beauty is their own. _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_

III. Soaring thoughts our minds entrance, Now we seem to spurn the ground. See,--the lights begin to dance, Whirling madly round and round. Still the goblet drain, _Buvons!_ Till each blazing vein _Trinquons!_ Sends fresh blood in sparkling flood To the reeling brain. _Plan! Plan! Plan! Rataplan!_

‘Your voice ought to make your fortune, Philippe,’ said Sainte-Croix, who appeared to know the student intimately.

‘_Pardieu!_ it does me little service. Theria, there, who cannot sing a note, keeps all the _galanteries_ to himself. Ho! Maître Camille! here I pledge your last conquest.’ And he raised his cup as he added, ‘Marie-Marguerite de Brinvilliers!’

Sainte-Croix started at the name; his eyes, flashing with anger, passed rapidly from one to the other of the two students.

‘_Chut!_’ cried another of the students, a man of small stature, who was dressed in the court costume of the period, but shabbily, and with every point exaggerated. ‘_Chut!_ Monsieur perchance knows la belle Marquise, and will not bear to hear her name lipped amongst us?’

The student had noticed the rapid change and expression of Sainte-Croix’s countenance.

‘No, no--you are mistaken,’ said Gaudin. ‘I am slightly acquainted with the lady. I served with her husband.’

‘Jean Blacquart,’ said Glazer, with much solemnity, to the scholar who had last spoken, ‘if you interrupt the conversation again, I shall let out your Gascon blood with the cook’s spit, and then drop you into the Bièvre. Remember it runs underneath the window.’

The Gascon--for so he was--was immediately silent.

‘The Captain Gaudin cannot know less of La Brinvilliers than I do,’ continued Theria, ‘save by report, as a charitable and spirited lady. I met her at mass a fortnight since, at the Jacobins in the Rue St. Honoré, and escorted her from a tumult that rose in the church. I might have improved on my acquaintance had that senseless Blacquart permitted me.’

The scholars looked towards Blacquart, and simultaneously broke into the same kind of noise they would have made in chasing an animal from the room. The Gascon was evidently the butt of the society.

‘Explain!’ cried several to Theria. ‘What was the tumult owing to?’

‘A woman, of course,’ answered Camille. ‘You know La Duménil?’

‘Proceed, proceed,’ exclaimed the others. The name was apparently well known amongst the scholars.

‘Well--her lackey stumbled against the chair on which Madame de la Beaume was kneeling, and got a box on the ears from the latter for his stupidity, that rang all through the church. La Duménil took part with her servant, and soundly abused the other, to which La Beaume replied as heartily, and the service was stopped.’

‘The quarrel must have been amusing,’ observed Glazer.

‘_Ventrebleu!_ the women in the _halles_ and markets would have turned pale at their salutations. At last La Duménil threw a missal at her opponent’s head, which well-nigh brought her to the ground. The people collected about them, and Madame de Brinvilliers was nearly crushed by the crowd, when I rescued her and led her to the porch.’

‘And what said she, Camille?’ inquired Glazer.

‘She was thanking me earnestly, and might have expressed something more, when that no-witted Blacquart spoilt everything by calling me back again. In his Gascon chivalry to defend La Beaume he had drawn his sword against Duménil.’

‘I think that was somewhat courageous though,’ returned Glazer with mock approbation. ‘Did you really do this, Jean?’

‘On my faith I did,’ answered the Gascon, brightening up; ‘and would do it again. I should like to see the woman in Paris that I am afraid of.’

A roar of applause greeted Blacquart’s heroism, and the attention of the party was immediately turned towards the Gascon, to the great relief of Sainte-Croix, who during the anecdote had been ill at ease. He could have added that he had himself escorted the marchioness from the Jacobins when Theria was recalled.

‘I propose,’ cried Camille, ‘that, for his bravery, Jean Blacquart be invested with the ancient Order of Montfauçon.’

‘Agreed,’ cried the others, rising and surrounding the Gascon, whose countenance betrayed a mixed expression of self-conceit and apprehension.

‘Ho, messire!’ exclaimed Theria to Lachaussée, who had remained all the time sitting near the fire; ‘we appoint you Master of the Halter. Take it, and tie it round that beam.’

He threw a cord to Sainte-Croix’s attendant as he spoke, who fastened it to the point indicated, with its running noose hanging down.

‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Blacquart, getting somewhat terrified.

‘To hang you,’ replied Camille: ‘but only for a little time. Glazer and myself will mind your pulse carefully; and when you are nearly dead you may depend upon it that we shall cut you down.’

‘But--I say--Theria--Philippe!’ cried Jean in an agony of fright. He had witnessed so many of their wild pranks that he did not know what they were about to do.

‘Père Camus,’ cried the master of the Gens de la Courte Épée to one of the party bearing a costume of the church--a broken-down and dissipated abbe. ‘Père Camus, chant a mass for the departing courage of Jean Blacquart.’

‘_Au secours!_’ shrieked the Gascon; ‘_au feu! aux voleurs! au----_’

His further cries for help were cut short by one of the scholars thrusting a baked apple into his mouth, and immediately tying his scarf over it. The miserable little Gascon was directly seized and hoisted on to the table, in spite of his violent struggles; whilst the abbe commenced a profane chant, intended as a parody upon some religious service.

Where their frolic might have ended cannot be defined. The consequences of the orgies in the time of Louis XIV., in every position of life, were little cared for; and the unhappy Jean might have been strangled by accident with very little compunction, had not a violent knocking at the door alarmed the revellers, and caused them to desist for the minute from their lawless proceedings. A silence ensued, unbroken except by the efforts of the Gascon to release himself, in the course of which he kicked the flagons and goblets about in all directions.

‘Open to the Garde Bourgeois!’ cried a voice outside.

There was no resisting the command. The host unbarred the door, and a little pursy man, who looked like a perambulating triumphal car of apoplexy, entered the cabaret.

‘Master Poncelet,’ he said to the host, as he shook his head, until his face was a deep crimson; ‘this is against the law, and I must look to it, as answerable for the morality of the faubourgs. We cannot allow this brawling four hours after curfew--we cannot allow it.’

‘If you had come two minutes later,’ said Blacquart, as he forced himself from his tormentors, ‘you would have seen me a----’

Under what guise the Garde Bourgeois would have seen Jean Blacquart was never made known to him. A back-handed blow from Theria overturned the Gascon into the corner of the room, from whence he did not care to arise, not knowing what reception might next await him.

‘Maître Picard,’ said the host with respect, addressing the patrol; ‘these are learned clerks--scholars of Mazarin and of Cluny; with some from the Hôtel Dieu. They seek the faubourgs for quiet and study.’

‘I cannot help it, Master Poncelet,’ replied the bourgeois; ‘the morality of St. Marcel requires the utmost vigilance of its superintendents. Messieurs, you must respect my authority, and put out all the lights directly.’

‘Call in your guard to do it,’ said Philippe Glazer; ‘we are not lackeys.’

‘My guard is now going round the Rue du Puits qui Parle,’ replied the bourgeois, ‘wherein is much evil congregated. I am here. Our good king Louis is The State. I am The Guard.’

‘Thank you--thank you, Maître Picard,’ said Theria. ‘I respect you, although you made me a cap last year of a villainous fabric, and told me that it was the best cloth of Louvain; you forgot I breathed my first gasp of air in Brabant. And you are sure that the guard cannot put out our lights?’

‘I have told you they are not near us,’ said the bourgeois, offended at being obliged to repeat the intelligence.

‘Excellent!’ observed Theria. ‘Philippe, close the door, and let Maître Picard take us all into custody.’

Glazer immediately obeyed the command of their chairman, whilst the others huddled round the luckless little bourgeois, who began to feel remarkably uncomfortable.

‘Respite the Gascon and hang Maître Picard in his stead, by his heels,’ said Theria.

‘I give you all warning!’ cried Picard; ‘I give you all warning! I am a _quartenier_ and can punish you all. Keep your hands away!’

Sainte-Croix, at the first appearance of the bourgeois, had thrown his cloak over his shoulders, not wishing to be recognised in his military dress, and had retreated with Lachaussée into a corner of the room, whither Maître Picard followed him with an appealing glance, noting that his appearance was somewhat more respectable than that of the scholars.

‘I tell you, you do this at your peril,’ screamed Picard. ‘The police show no mercy to the vagabonds and _mauvais garçons_ who maltreat an enlightened bourgeois.’

‘We thank you for the hint,’ said Theria. ‘Ho! _mes enfants_; in consideration of Maître Picard’s enlightenment we incline to mercy and utility. Let us hang him before the door, and save our host’s candles. La Reinie never thought of so grand an illumination as an enlightened bourgeois.’

‘Agreed!’ cried the scholars. ‘_A la lanterne! à la lanterne!_’

[image: img_04.jpg caption: The Students Enlightening Maître Picard]